


Dianthus Caryophyllus

by stillscape



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, F/M, Fluff, Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 18:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: In which Betty Cooper plays Cupid, Archie Andrews plays the field, Kevin Keller plays for the love of the game, Jughead Jones really doesn't want to play at all, and nothing quite goes according to plan.A pre-canon Valentine's Day AU.





	Dianthus Caryophyllus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [village_skeptic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/village_skeptic/gifts).



> "If you have any Valentine's Day requests," I said, and village-skeptic did. 
> 
> Co-dedicated to the wonderful raptorlily, who is just going to get blamed for all my pre-canon shenanigans at this point.

“That’s what you’re wearing?” 

Betty spun around, quickly refocusing her attention from her reflection in the full-length mirror to her sister in the doorway. Polly’s eyebrows were raised slightly, and Betty thought she could see an un-twitched twitch hovering around her sister’s lips. 

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, smoothing her palms self-consciously over her skirt. Said skirt was a tad shorter than her usual length, but that was kind of the point of it; besides, the rest of her outfit was her usual degree of conservative. The white button-down blouse printed with tiny pink hearts was cute, and the pink Peter Pan-collared cardigan was in her regular wardrobe rotation anyway. 

Perhaps the pink ribbon she’d tied around her ponytail was a bit much. But if you couldn’t tie a pink ribbon around your ponytail on Valentine’s Day, then when could you? Or maybe Polly was referring to her white tights, which were also printed with tiny pink hearts. Again, though—those were _cute_. 

“Nothing.” Polly (who was already dressed in her River Vixens uniform) stretched her lips into a smile now. “For a minute, I forgot you were playing Cupid today.” 

Betty grabbed her backpack from the foot of her bed—she’d apply her pink lipstick at school, out of her mother’s sight—and the two of them headed downstairs. 

“No time for breakfast this morning, Mom,” Polly called, as they passed their mother in her usual morning apron, orange juice pitcher in hand. “We have to get to school early to help with the charity drive.” 

The twitch that appeared on Alice Cooper’s lips at the sight of her daughters was not withheld; rather, it was _managed_ , controlled, manipulated until those lips were pressed so tightly together they nearly disappeared. 

“Elizabeth,” she said, once she’d unglued her face, “that combination of skirt and blouse isn’t flattering to your waistline.” 

Betty picked up the little packages of heart-shaped cookies she’d baked and decorated the night before from the kitchen—one for Archie, one for Kevin, one for Jason (technically from Polly, though Polly had flaked on the decorating party), and one for Jughead—and rolled her eyes, thankful she’d at least gotten to a place of being able to let comments like _that_ roll off her back. 

Maybe one day, she thought—maybe one day, she’d have it in her to roll her eyes directly at her mother, and not just when she was facing the opposite direction. 

As she and Polly walked past the Andrews’ house, she let her eyes flick upwards to Archie’s bedroom window. His light was on, but the curtains were drawn. 

She bit her lip and kept walking. 

They found the Blossom twins’ convertible idling around the next corner, Jason behind the wheel while Cheryl, also in her River Vixens uniform, stretched her long, pale legs from the passenger seat to the dashboard. Polly ran over immediately; Betty took her time, knowing perfectly well what would happen next. 

“Mind if I ride?” Polly asked her. Jason was already out of the car, and she was already climbing into the backseat. “We can clear some stuff out of the way for you.” 

“No, that’s okay,” Betty replied. “I’d rather walk.” 

“See you at school, then!” Polly called. She waved from the backseat; Betty didn’t even have time to wave back before the red convertible sped away.

  
  
  
  


The Riverdale High athletic department (which included the River Vixens) had been holding the same annual Valentine’s Day fundraiser for decades, since long before Betty’s own parents had attended the school: a carnation sale. The flowers were always donated by Blossom Family Hothouses; deliverypeople in red jumpsuits were still unloading the last few flats as Betty entered the gymnasium. Scores and scores of flowers already lined the bleachers, where various River Vixens and members of the girls’ basketball and tennis teams were hard at work assembling pre-orders. 

(Some of the male varsity athletes were playfully shoving each other in one of the corners, Betty noticed, but none of them seemed at all inclined to do any of the actual work.)

Betty was not a River Vixen, and nor was she on any athletic teams, but she’d volunteered to help anyway. Almost no one wanted to roam Riverdale High’s halls delivering flowers—red carnations for love, pink carnations for crushes, and white carnations for friendship—but Betty had found herself jumping at the opportunity. She could help the fundraiser without having to spend much time dealing with the River Vixens themselves. She would know, from the order slips, just who was buying flowers for whom (not that she cared much about the gossip, but she was sure it would be _fascinating_ , the insight into high school romances). On top of that, bringing people flowers would undoubtedly make them happy. And who, she thought, wouldn’t want to spend their day making other people happy? 

(Who, she thought, wouldn’t rather spend their day making other people happy than wondering whether anyone was going to bring _them_ a pink or red carnation? No, it was much better to keep herself busy and distracted.) 

“Hi, Tina,” she said, as she approached the table. “Hi, Ginger. I—”

“You’re late,” Tina snapped, although Betty was, in fact, five minutes early. “We’re behind already. Here, take these.” 

“Where’s Polly?” Betty asked. She’d dropped off her stuff in her locker before heading to the gym, but she’d brought Jason’s cookies with her. These she set on the table as she strapped on her Cupid accessory, a set of white feathery angel wings that were either from a Halloween shop or a lingerie store (she didn’t really want to know which). 

Tina shrugged. “Haven’t seen her. Are you taking the flowers or not?” 

“I’m taking them,” Betty grumbled, accepting an armful of cellophane-wrapped bundles. 

She almost left the cookies with Tina, but thought better of it, and departed with the pink paper sack clutched tightly in her hand. If Polly really wanted to give them to Jason, then Polly could come get them herself.

  
  
  
  


Betty sped around the halls of Riverdale High at lightning speed, darting from locker to locker as though the Cupid wings really did make her fly, and _just_ got the second-to-last carnation delivered before the first period bell rang. The very last bouquet from her first round was for Midge Klump, and Midge was in her homeroom. Betty peeked at the card before going into the room; as she’d suspected, the flowers were from Moose Mason. 

“Delivery from Cupid,” she said, through a big smile. 

Midge’s smile as she accepted the bundle of pink carnations was even bigger, and Betty’s heart gave a little flutter as she made her way to her own desk. If _Moose_ could get it together enough to send carnations, then Archie… then Archie could… 

But the smile quickly faded from Betty’s face. “Ow!” she yelped, as her shin collided with the leg of her desk, and then “Ow!” again when she tried to sit down. 

“You okay?” Jughead was already up from his usual seat behind her and reaching for the angel wings, which had entangled themselves in the back of her chair. 

“I’m fine, thanks.” It took a little effort not to be annoyed, though; although she was certainly _distracted_ by the way Archie seemed to be doing a head count of which girls in their room already had pink carnations and which didn’t, what had made her lose focus enough to collide with the chair in the first place was the completely incomprehensible expression on Jughead’s face as he studied her entire getup. 

_Of course_ , she thought as she rubbed angrily at her shin; she shouldn’t have been at all surprised Jughead would give her a funny look if she walked into the classroom wearing feathered wings, not when Jughead had spent a solid fifteen minutes at Pop’s last week railing against corporatism and fake holidays and the rip-off that was the American greeting card industry. 

(“The only good thing about Valentine’s Day is February fifteenth,” he’d said, banging the end of his spoon on the table; a little drop of coffee flew from it and landed on Betty’s French fries. 

“What’s so great about the fifteenth?” Archie asked, brow furrowed in confusion, like they hadn’t had this conversation for the last four years at least.

“That’s the day the candy goes on sale.”) 

Jughead’s lips parted slightly, like he might have something he wanted to say, but then their teacher cleared her throat to signal the start of class, and he merely hung the wings from the back of her chair and sat down at his own desk again. 

She returned to her locker after homeroom, in search of Tylenol for her bruised shin; Archie showed up just as she located the pill bottle and poured two into her palm. “Hey, Betty,” he said, a hint of nervousness in his voice, “how much do you know about… you know?” 

“The flowers?” It was a dumb answer, but then, it was also kind of a dumb question. 

Archie nodded. “Like—okay, I know this is going to sound stupid. But let’s say someone wanted to send some flowers to someone else. Would you be able to tell the first person how many people might be sending flowers to the second person? If the first person didn’t want to, I don’t know…” 

“No, I don’t know,” Betty said, although she was all too afraid that she did. She popped the Tylenol into her mouth and dry-swallowed them. “I only know what I’m delivering.” 

“Right, right.” Archie nodded again, and his glance slid over Betty’s head to the corner of the corridor, where—her heart sank gently at the realization—several of the more popular girls were clustered. 

“They’re two dollars each and they’re for a good cause, Archie,” she sighed. “If you want to send a girl carnations, just send a girl carnations.” 

Somewhere in the halls of Riverdale High, a single pre-ordered pink carnation was on its way, anonymously, to Archie. When she’d woken up this morning, Betty had been angry with herself for chickening out yet again; now she found herself hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t be there when the carnation found Archie, or—even worse—that she wouldn’t have to deliver it herself. 

“Hey, and I brought you cookies,” she added, handing him a pink bag. 

“Oh, awesome,” Archie replied. He did not open the bag. “Thanks, Betts. You’re the best.”

  
  
  
  


She managed another five flower deliveries between first and second periods, and another three between second and third, so that by the time she returned to her locker briefly before lunch she already felt like she’d run a marathon. She had, at least, remembered to take off her Cupid wings _before_ sitting down the next two times. 

“No lunch today,” came a clipped voice behind Betty, and she turned around to find Cheryl Blossom at her locker, arms folded across her chest in a way that somehow emphasized the Cupid wings she herself was wearing. “You have work to do.” 

“You can’t make me skip lunch,” Betty protested, keenly aware of her skipped breakfast. Her stomach had started to rumble hours ago. 

Cheryl shrugged a single shoulder, maintaining her perfectly bored expression as she did so. “Omnia vincit amor, including hunger. Let’s go.” 

Stifling a sigh so that Cheryl couldn’t hear, Betty swung her locker shut and snapped the padlock back on. 

“This holiday isn’t about romance at all, you know,” Cheryl said quietly as they passed through the entrance to the gym. “It’s about martyrdom. Don’t forget that.” 

Polly and Jason canoodled on the bleachers, a giant bouquet of red carnations in front of each of them. 

Archie stood at the end of the purchasing line. He blushed a little when she caught his eye, and waved at her over the pink carnation that was now pinned to his hoodie, and suddenly Betty wasn’t hungry anymore.

  
  
  
  


There was a dramatic, metallic clang as Kevin Keller threw himself against the locker next to hers. His own Cupid wings lost precisely three feathers. 

“Please tell me you weren’t too cool to bring those pink frosted heart cookies this year,” he groaned. “I swear Cheryl’s on some kind of psychotic rampage. Do you have any idea how many times she just made me run up and down the stairs on separate deliveries?” 

“Too many,” Betty guessed, as her hunger pangs fired right back up again. She handed Kevin a pink bag, welcoming the tingling warmth she felt when his eyes widened in pleasure. “And since when have I ever been too cool for anything?” 

“Never, and I love you for it.” 

Ignoring his mock-angry glare, Betty reached into Kevin’s bag and grabbed a cookie for herself. “Any luck so far?” she asked quietly, before she bit in. 

Kevin, who’d shoved an entire half of a cookie into his mouth at once, shook his head. “Nope,” he said, managing not to spray crumbs everywhere. “You?” 

Betty shook her head too. “Nope.” 

“I feel bad for me and worse for you,” he said, sighing a little as a few of the senior water polo players walked past them. “I mean, I knew the odds were slim to none on my end, just based on the demographics. But _you_ —what is wrong with these straight boys?” 

After half a day delivering carnations, mostly to Riverdale High's female student population, Betty was pretty sure she knew. There was nothing wrong with the straight boys (who were just boys, after all), but there was plenty wrong with _her_. Maybe, she thought, this slightly shorter skirt wasn’t short enough. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn the heart-patterned tights. Maybe she should have come to school in that weird bustier top she’d found when she’d run out of clean socks and was looking for a pair in Polly’s drawer a few weeks ago. Maybe she should have baked cookies only for the boy she had a crush on, not the boy she had a crush on, her gay best friend, her crush’s best friend, and her sister’s boyfriend. 

“Betty,” Kevin said, and she snapped back to attention at the impatience in his voice. 

“Sorry. What?” 

“I said, you’re lucky you have me.” 

“Yeah, I know,” she agreed. “I—wait, what are you doing?” 

Kevin had procured a pink carnation from somewhere or other, which he was now surreptitiously slipping into one of the buttonholes on her cardigan. 

“Bought this for you,” he said. “There.” 

“Kev, you don’t have a crush on me.” 

“It’s not _from_ me,” he said, winking.

“You just said—”

“Oh, my god, Betty Cooper, you’re smarter than this. Of course it’s really from me, but if anyone asks…” His eyes widened dramatically, and she got it. “If anyone asks, it was delivered to you anonymously.” 

“Right,” she said. “Thanks, Kevin.” 

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t mention it; that would defeat the purpose.” 

She laughed, and was even starting to feel a little bit better about the whole day, until Cheryl Blossom strode up to her holding a half-dozen red carnations tied together with a little bow. 

“That’s a cute trick,” Cheryl said, inclining her chin towards the carnation in Betty’s buttonhole, “but we all know Kevin’s gay.” 

“Cheryl!” Kevin hissed.

Cheryl did not, of course, appear impressed. “Here,” she said, thrusting the red carnations at Betty. “I believe your next class is with this unlucky person. You can deliver them.” 

Once Cheryl had stalked away, Betty peeked at the card, Kevin peering over her shoulder as she did so. 

“Oh, my god,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I’m thrilled we all have English together.” 

Betty merely took a deep breath.

  
  
  
  


She took another deep breath as she entered the English classroom with the six red carnations and walked to the very back row of desks, towards the one person at Riverdale High that she knew would not welcome red carnations from anyone. She walked slowly, and deliberately, and did not let her eyes flick to her right, where she knew the person who had sent the flowers would be sitting. 

For some reason, Jughead stood up as she approached. He stood up, and tugged on the hem of the jacket he never took off, and wore the same expression he had earlier that morning, when he’d looked at her as though there was something he wanted to say. 

“Delivery from Cupid,” Betty told him, more quietly than she’d been announcing it for most of the day. She could sense Kevin behind her, hovering just far enough away that he’d be able to deny he was hovering at all. 

As she handed over the flowers, Jughead’s fingers brushed against hers. He jumped, as though startled by the contact. Then he met her eyes with a gaze so intense that a little electric jolt went through her spine, a little electric jolt that she didn’t understand at _all_ , a jolt that lingered, tingling lightly, even after he’d broken eye contact and started staring instead at the pink carnation in her buttonhole. 

“Secret admirer,” she said, with a glance at the flower—and pathetically, she thought, quickly adding a smile that she was sure Jughead could see right through. “Read the card, Juggie.” Before he could open it, she was ducking between chairs, landing in the seat next to Kevin. 

“She couldn’t even be in the room for this,” Kevin whispered. “Please, Betty, if I’m _ever_ so lucky as to find someone I think is worthy of a red carnation, please at least make sure I’m in the room when they’re delivered. Even if I’m sending them to someone as weird as Jughead Jones.” 

Betty glanced over and saw that he was right: Ethel Muggs’ usual desk was vacant. With a very slight sense of relief, Betty looked back at Jughead, who was now staring so hard at Ethel’s card that she thought it might catch on fire. It did not, in the end. Jughead merely folded it shut and set both it and the six carnations gently on the empty desk to his right. 

Ethel came in a few moments later, sat at her usual seat, and spent the entire period throwing anxious looks in Jughead’s direction. As far as Betty could tell, he returned none of them. But then, she was trying to pay attention to the teacher, too, so maybe she just missed something.

  
  
  
  


By the end of fourth period, Betty had started feeling as though she might faint. She raced for her locker as soon as the bell rang, but was waylaid by Cheryl Blossom again before she could get there. 

“Here. You have fifth period with three of these girls,” Cheryl said without even bothering to slow down, and dropped another bundle of flowers in her arms before Betty could wonder how or why Cheryl was so intimately acquainted with her class schedule. A dozen pink carnations, individually wrapped in pink cellophane. 

With a heavy sigh, Betty glanced at the first card. 

Her heart sank. 

It was addressed to Nancy Woods, and signed “Anonymous.” But those words were written in a hand she recognized all too well as belonging to the boy next door. 

She glanced at the next card, which bore the same handwriting, and the next, and the next, and… 

Betty blinked back a tear, set her jaw, and marched straight to the gym. 

“I don’t have time to deliver these,” she said bluntly. Then she dumped Archie’s entire pile of flowers unceremoniously in Ginger Lopez’s lap and walked away. 

It felt good. 

“You can turn in those Cupid wings, then,” Ginger called after her. Without breaking stride, without turning around, Betty shrugged the wings off and let them fall on the floor. 

That felt even better.

  
  
  
  


Betty would not be the girl who cut class to cry in the bathroom over a boy. Over any boy. Not even Archie. 

_Especially_ not Archie, she told herself. A dozen carnations to a dozen different girls, really? She could hear Kevin’s voice in her ear, see Kevin shaking his head as he lamented once again how straight boys never knew what they wanted, or what would be good for them. 

She walked into U.S. History with her head held high and her chest thrust out the tiniest bit. Just enough to show off the carnation in her buttonhole. 

There were carnations on her desk, a dozen of them. White ones. 

“Those are from me,” Archie stage-whispered eagerly in her ear as she sat down, like she hadn’t figured that out the moment she saw the unruly loops in the _B_ at the beginning of _Betty_. 

She would not be the girl who cried in U.S. History over a boy. She wouldn’t be. 

Jughead slid into the classroom only seconds before the bell rang, and took his usual seat by Archie. If Betty hadn’t known better, she might have imagined that he’d been crying in the bathroom over a _girl_ , or at least that he’d been trying not to cry in the bathroom over a girl. 

Maybe he had been, though, and for different reasons than she would have been crying. Nice though Ethel was, well… Betty wasn’t sure whether Jughead even had a type. But if he did, she was pretty sure that type was not Ethel Muggs. 

She glanced over at Jughead, and was surprised to find him staring hard at the pink carnation in her buttonhole. His eyes flicked up to hers for just a moment, and then he looked away completely. 

Tina Patel interrupted class halfway through, wearing a slightly dented pair of wings, to deliver three pink carnations to three different girls and a slightly murderous look to Betty.

  
  
  
  


Part of Betty—the part that said _we follow through with our commitments, Elizabeth_ in her mother’s nagging voice—knew she should go to the gym as soon as the final bell rang, knew she should help clean up whatever remained of the fundraiser. A larger part of Betty felt like she was going to faint if she didn’t get some food right that minute. Today, and possibly for the first time in her life, her stomach overruled her conscience. The fact that she knew Archie would be at basketball practice at one end of the gym, and Polly at River Vixens practice at the other, merely sealed the deal. 

Polly never had gotten Jason’s cookies from her. Why had she even bothered? 

Home was closer than Pop’s, but her mother might be home, might nag her about filling up before dinner, and so Betty marched herself straight out of Riverdale High and over to the diner. 

Unfortunately for her, Pop’s was very full this afternoon. Fortunately for her, she could see a familiar face—or rather, a familiar hat—alone in a booth at the back. The face that belonged to the hat was hidden behind a hardback copy of _The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone_. 

“Nice choice of reading material,” she said, as she sat across from Jughead. 

She thought she saw him jump slightly, and when he finally lowered the book, she thought she saw a look of displeasure on his face. 

“Sorry for interrupting. You can keep reading if you want. There’s just nowhere else to sit.”

Jughead closed the book and set it aside. “It’s fine,” he said. He did not utter another word until a waitress came over to take their orders, at which point he said, merely, "The usual." 

“I have something for you, by the way.” Betty reached into her backpack, pulled out the two remaining bags of cookies, and slid them both across the table. “I meant to give them to you earlier, but Cheryl made me skip lunch to deliver flowers.” 

“Two bags, huh?” He reached inside one and pulled out a perfectly frosted pink heart, at which he proceeded to stare absently. 

“One was supposed to be Polly’s, to give to Jason,” she explained. “But she never—it doesn’t matter. You’ll appreciate them more.” 

“You made cookies for your sister to give to her boyfriend?” 

Betty took a deep breath and let it out; her exhalation sounded exactly like frustration, even to her, and she found she needed to stare out the window. “Yeah, I’m aware of how lame it sounds when you put it that way.” 

There was a long, long pause before Jughead said, quietly, “It’s not lame that you care a lot, Betty.” 

She dragged her eyes back inside the diner. Jughead didn’t _look_ as though he’d been body-snatched. 

“I care too much, obviously.” The white carnations were packed neatly in her backpack, for god’s sake, and the pink one from Kevin—the pink one from Kevin, which Archie absolutely had not noticed—was still in her buttonhole. She pulled it out, now, and threw it on the tabletop. “That was from Kevin, by the way. Kevin had to buy me a pink carnation, just so it wouldn’t look like…” 

She stopped talking when she felt those all-too-familiar hot, sticky prickles behind her eyeballs, and, quickly moving her hands under the table, squeezed her nails into her palms instead. The sting didn’t help. Nor did the furrow in Jughead’s brow, the one that for some reason was making her need to look out the window again. 

“I’m fine,” she muttered, though Jughead hadn’t said anything. “All I’ve eaten today is one of those cookies. I’ll feel better after I have some real food.” She stood up. “Watch my bag while I go wash my hands?”

  
  
  
  


She did feel better after she had some real food: most of a burger, half of her French fries, all of her vanilla milkshake (which she’d ordered in defiance of the Valentine’s Day special, chocolate-covered strawberry). She felt better enough to accept Jughead’s offer to walk her home, which he did silently, and with that same weird look on his face, the one she’d been noticing on and off throughout the day. 

Finally, just before they turned on to Elm Street, she stopped and turned to him. 

“What?” she said. “What, Jughead?” 

He shook his head, but without breaking eye contact. 

“I know,” Betty groaned. “I know how stupid it is that I have—that I can’t—” She sighed in frustration, at her inability to get the words out. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand.” 

“What if I said I did?” 

She blinked, confused. Although Jughead looked suddenly... sweaty, even in the chilly February air, he seemed resolute. 

“You do?” she asked, and then, unable to quite process the information that Jughead _liked_ someone, blurted out “Who?” 

Slowly, Jughead reached into his messenger bag and removed a dozen pink carnations and a small heart-shaped box of chocolates. He handed both to her. 

“You should know,” he said, his voice short. Then he turned and walked away. 

“Juggie,” she said quietly, but he either did not hear her or chose not to respond. 

Maybe that was for the best. It wasn’t as though she had any idea how to react to this.

  
  
  
  


Two hours later, after she’d been chided for not eating enough dinner, Betty returned to her bedroom, pulled the flowers from where she’d hidden them underneath her bed, and—after a deep, steadying breath—finally opened the little envelope. Inside, she found not the card she’d been expecting, but a heavily folded sheet of loose-leaf notebook paper with a ketchup stain on one corner. 

_I’m writing this while you’re in the bathroom at Pop’s_ , it said. _I don’t know if I’ll work up the courage to give it to you. If I don’t…_

That was as far as he’d gotten. 

Weird as the whole thing was, she wished now that she’d taken a lot more time in the bathroom.

  
  
  
  


She thought about it all night. She thought about it while she was getting dressed the next morning (in a blue sweater and jeans, nothing remotely Valentine-ish), and she thought about it while she ate breakfast. She thought about it right up until she walked up to Jughead’s locker with her shoulders squared and said, with a slight catch in her breath, “Can we talk?” 

They went into the nearest empty classroom, which wasn’t a classroom at all but the dusty, unused offices of the old student newspaper. Jughead perched on the edge of a desk, arms folded across his chest; Betty almost did the same, but realized at the last second she might not be tall enough to leave her feet on the ground, and decided to pace instead. 

“I’ve been thinking,” she started. 

“You don’t have to say anything, Betty.” He stared at the floor as he spoke. “I should have just kept my mouth shut.” 

_You paid full price for candy_ , she thought. “No. I mean, I don’t—I don’t know everything about what I think, yet. But I do know that it, that what you said yesterday—” And what _had_ he said, really?— “It was nice to hear,” she concluded. “So I’m glad you said it, Jug. I am. Honestly.” 

“You have feelings for Archie, though.” It wasn’t a question. She nodded in affirmation anyway. “So that’s that.” 

He started to move towards the door, but Betty was just enough in the way that he hesitated, obviously not wanting to blow around her. 

“Archie doesn’t have feelings for me,” she said softly. 

“Maybe not now. But what’s more likely to happen here? That Archie comes to his senses and realizes what’s been right in front of him the whole time, or that you…” Jughead shook his head instead of finishing the sentence. “My money’s on the former.” 

_That I what?_ floated through Betty’s mind; she knew the answer would be clear enough if she thought it through, but now wasn’t the time. “So what do we do?” 

“Do?” This time he did start to move around her, towards the door. “We don’t _do_ anything. We keep going with our lives.” 

“Jughead,” she said, taking a step towards him. They were close enough now that she could touch his arm, and so she did; he froze in his tracks. 

As they both looked at her fingers, nestled comfortably in plaid flannel, Betty tried to put herself in Jughead’s shoes. Flipping the script wasn’t at all difficult. If she was in a room with Archie—if she had told him how she felt, and then they’d wound up in a situation like this—

“This is the part of the movie where we kiss experimentally, and your feelings suddenly change.” The way Jughead said it made the prospect sound incredibly depressing. He must have thought so too, because he jerked his arm away. “I don’t want that, okay?” 

Betty nodded. She understood, she did. Jughead would want her feelings to change _first_ ; he didn’t want to be a consolation prize, and she could only respect him for that. 

“We’re still friends, though, right?” she asked. “We’re… okay?” 

He released a long, heavy sigh. “We share four classes, a lunch period, and a best friend,” he said. “I hardly think we’re going to be able to avoid each other.” 

It wasn’t exactly an answer to her question, but she nodded again anyway. 

Jughead was almost out the door, had his hand on the knob, when she spoke again. 

“Juggie?” she asked, and he paused. “How did you feel when you got those flowers from Ethel yesterday?” 

“Awful,” he said at once.

“Not… I don’t know. Like it’s at least nice to know someone cares that much?” 

“Ethel is never going to be the right someone,” he said as he opened the door, and then he walked through and closed it behind him, leaving Betty alone with far too many thoughts. 

The pink carnations were in a vase on her vanity table. They had made her feel a lot of different ways, but _awful_ was not one.

  
  
  
  


She kept to herself as much as possible for the rest of the day, and for the day after that, until even Archie noticed that something was up. 

“Are you okay?” he asked as they walked home together on Friday. “You seem… sad.” 

“I’m not sad,” Betty said. _Scared_ , she was scared. “I just—Archie, I need to talk to you about something.” 

She was sad, after that. Polly held her, and stroked her hair while she cried, and snapped at their mother when Alice said it was about time Betty got over her silly infatuation with the Andrews boy. 

Archie kept his curtains closed. Betty kept her curtains closed. Ethel Muggs went on a date with a sophomore football player Betty didn’t know. 

Jughead kept his guard up. But then, there was nothing new about that.

  
  
  
  


March brought with it a burst of unseasonably warm weather, the kind that made you want to throw open all the windows in the house and breathe in fresh air until you had to run for the Claritin. 

Betty sat in her window seat one Saturday morning, the collected works of Jane Austen in hand, enjoying the feel of sunshine on her bare feet. Across the way, Archie threw back his own curtains, and froze when he caught Betty looking at him. 

Her heart pulsed especially hard once, and she could feel a little ache along its main fissure, but… the fissure stayed closed. 

She smiled and waved at Archie, and—with a look of tremendous relief—he smiled and waved back.

  
  
  
  


“This is not a plan I understand,” Kevin said. He leaned harder against the locker next to hers and reached in for one of today’s cookies. “It’s not a plan I understand at all.” 

“It’s not a very complicated plan,” she pointed out. 

“Okay, fine. I understand the plan. I don’t understand the motivating factors behind it.” 

“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness.” 

“What?”

Betty snapped the lid back onto her cookie tin. “You don’t have to understand, Kevin,” she said. “You just have to be supportive.” 

He stood up straight and saluted her. “Human bra reporting for duty,” he said. “Seriously, though, Betty. _Why_?” 

“Because there’s something I want to know,” she said simply. Tucking the cookie tin under her arm, she marched away, leaving Kevin with his mouth very slightly agape. 

She found Jughead more or less where she’d expected to—outside at one of the picnic benches, alone, with his nose in his laptop. As she approached, she put a little extra weight into each footstep, hoping he’d look up at the crunch of gravel. 

He did, closing his laptop screen with an expression that was slightly wary. “Betty,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

This shouldn’t have felt harder than asking Archie to tell her, flat out, whether or not he would ever have feelings for her. It shouldn’t have, and in fact it didn’t, but nevertheless a wave of nervousness that Betty hadn’t been expecting washed through the pit of her stomach. 

She sat on the table part of the picnic table, putting her feet on the bench seat next to Jughead. The cookie tin rested in her lap, and she ran her fingers over the little lip at the bottom of the lid, ready to pry it open at a moment’s notice. 

“I wanted to ask you something.” 

Jughead’s lips parted slightly, but he remained silent. 

“The Spring Fling is coming up in a couple of weeks.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the next part. “I was hoping you’d go with me.” 

Both eyebrows threatened to disappear under the brim of Jughead’s hat. “Wow,” he said. “That was _not_ what I was expecting.” 

“I know you don’t really do dances, but…” She shrugged. “And it can be as friends, if you want. I just…” 

“You want to go, but you don’t want to go alone and I’m the easy option?” 

“No,” she said quickly, feeling a little sting at his self-deprecation. “The easy option is going with Kevin. I want to go with you, Jug.” 

“As friends,” he said skeptically. 

“If you want. Or as—as a real date, if you want.” 

“Betty.” Jughead sounded, suddenly, exhausted. “What do _you_ want?” 

“I don’t know, exactly,” she admitted. “But it’s not Archie anymore. I know that much. You were right, you know,” she added hastily, when Jughead’s whole body twitched in a way that indicated he might be about to bolt. “About doing things in the right order.” 

“Betty…” 

“But you were wrong about the flowers.” She could see his fingers moving over one of the stickers on his laptop, tracing it as she was tracing the lid of her cookie tin, and she quickly moved her hand to cover his. “When you said you felt awful because they were from the wrong person, it felt like—like you thought _I_ felt awful because I got flowers from the wrong person. But they didn’t make me feel awful at all, Jug. I put them in a vase when I got home. I didn’t throw them out until they turned brown.” 

Jughead sighed. “So you’re a better person than I am. I think we knew that already.” 

“I’m not and we didn’t,” she said quietly. “But what if it means that maybe they were from the right person, and I just didn’t know it yet?” 

A long, heavy silence passed between them, during which Jughead slid his hand out from under hers. 

“You still don’t know.” There was the slightest hint of a question in his voice. 

“No,” she admitted. She started to force a little smile onto her face, and found she didn’t have to force it after all. “But there’s only one way to find out, right?” 

His eyes scanned over her, from her suede boots on the picnic bench to the top of her head, and then drifted back down to the cookie tin that was still resting, unopened, in her lap. 

“Okay,” he said, at long last. “I’ll go with you. You don’t even have to bribe me.” 

“But you’ll take a bribe anyway, right?” 

“Obviously.” He looked suddenly nervous, and then swallowed once, which seemed to quash it all down. “You _will_ probably have to bribe me to get me to dance, though.” 

“I can do that,” Betty said. 

She left the tin with him, and walked back to school feeling strangely light on her feet.

  
  
  
  


Two weeks later, she stood in front of her full-length mirror, smoothing her palms nervously over the skirt of her new pink dress while she waited for the doorbell to ring. 

“You look beautiful, Betty,” said Polly, her reflection materializing in the mirror. “Really.” 

She did, she thought. She could think that. She hoped she and Polly weren't the only ones. 

“Thanks, Pol.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride with me and Jason?” 

_You and Jason and Cheryl_ , Betty thought, but she said only, “No, thanks. It’s only a few blocks. We’re happy walking.” 

She had just enough time for another coat of lipstick before the doorbell rang. A bit of muffled conversation drifted up the stairs, and then she heard footsteps. 

Alice Cooper’s head poked into the bedroom. She did not look impressed. “This date of yours refuses to remove his headwear inside, Elizabeth. That’s not very gentlemanlike.” 

Betty rolled her eyes. “It’s just a hat, Mom.” 

Her mother’s lips remained pursed, and her arms remained folded tightly across her chest, but she glanced at Archie’s bedroom window and said no more. 

“Mom, come help me pin up my hair,” Polly said just a little too forcefully; Betty shot her sister a grateful look as Polly dragged their mother into the bathroom. 

There were plenty of opening lines running through Betty’s mind as she headed down the stairs— _sorry about my mother_ was one, and a simple _shall we?_ was another. Those would suffice, especially since she wasn’t even sure whether they were going just as friends or as something a little more. But when Betty reached the landing and actually saw her date, all her words were knocked right out of her. 

Judging by the soft little crinkle around his eyes, the shyness that had crept into his tiny smile, Jughead was feeling about the same way. 

“Hi,” she said, taking him in. She had been expecting a suit, or at least a non-flannel shirt and something resembling a blazer; she hadn’t been expecting a suit to look so _good_. 

“Hi,” Jughead replied. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment, then produced a single pink carnation. Only after he’d pinned it to her dress did Betty realize that a matching one was already tucked into his lapel.

  
  
  
  


“I still don’t get this,” Kevin told her, shaking his head slightly. He’d pulled her onto the dance floor while Jughead went to get punch. “You’re having fun?” 

“Yeah,” she said, and she meant it. “I am.”

  
  
  
  


“So I didn’t even have to bribe to you dance, in the end,” she said, as they walked back to her house. Archie had said something about going back with them, earlier, but he was nowhere to be seen now. Betty found she was perfectly happy not to have him tagging along, perfectly happy to be walking hand-in-hand with Jughead, in the moonlight, as they passed the park… she was just perfectly happy, really. 

“You pre-bribed me,” Jughead countered. 

“So I have to bake more cookies before the next dance?” 

“No,” he said, tugging her hand a little as he slowed to a halt just before they hit Elm Street. “Also…” 

“What?” she said, when he didn’t continue. “ _What_ , Jughead?” 

_Oh_ , she thought a moment later, when his lips met hers. _That_.

  
  
  
  


(fin)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the scientific name for carnations. 
> 
> I know it's a bit early for Valentine's Day fic, but I think I might have another one in the works, so...I'm posting this one a bit early.
> 
> As always, if you read and enjoyed this story, please leave a comment and let me know :)


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